Opportunities at the CIA

THE BLACK COLLEGIAN offers a glimpse of what it’s like to work at the Central Intelligence Agency through interviews with Sue Bromley, Deputy Director for Intelligence; Peter Clement, Deputy Director for Intelligence for Strategic Programs; Gertie Starks, Director for Management, Leadership, and Diversity Programs (MLDP), Directorate of Intelligence; and Brian Martin, Vice Chair, Black Executive Board.

Opportunities are plentiful for students considering careers at the CIA.

THE BLACK COLLEGIAN: Please tell us about your start at the Central Intelligence Agency, your career path and preparation that led to your move into senior leadership?

SUE BROMLEY: My Agency career has been very exciting and diverse. While I was working on my Master’s degree at the University of Maryland a colleague talked with me about working at the CIA. I thought about it and said “that sounds like an interesting way to make a unique difference in the government.” I was very wrapped up in geography, maps, and technology and the Agency was a hallmark of excellence in those areas. About nine months later after going through that process that we all go through, I landed here in the Agency. I began my career as cartographer in the Directorate of Intelligence. Two years later, I was in an executive leadership program. That was a great opportunity, which led to a position in the former Office of Imagery Analysis, just prior to the first Gulf War. I loved it; I was in a position where I used my analytical skills and academic background in geography.

I subsequently moved to a couple of different positions in the imagery world and ended up in the Counter-Narcotics Center, which was a wonderful opportunity for me. It’s a mission everybody feels passionate about, to think that you’re making a difference, a unique difference, on something like counter narcotics. Stopping drugs before they entered the U.S. was very fulfilling. But beyond that, it was a great opportunity to grow and learn and develop. Although I was home-based in the Washington area, I had many opportunities to travel around the world. I talked to seniors in other governments who were working the supply side of that issue and with senior people from our own government to help form our Counter-Narcotics Program. I was there for over five years.

TBC: Tell us about your experiences in the Executive Leadership program.

BROMLEY: One of the opportunities I had in the Executive Leadership program was to serve an interim assignment on the Afghan Task Force, which is where I first saw the big Agency perspective on things. That was really an important developmental opportunity for me, because the administration at the time had asked the Agency to make a difference on an important issue. I saw everything that the Agency could bring to that issue – support services, science and technology, operations, and analytic insights and thoughts – come together toward a common goal. That experience really shaped the way I felt about the Agency and has had a profound effect on my career.
In the Counter-Narcotics Center, I had good leadership from people who helped me develop. I had an opportunity to run a targeting group in one of the clandestine service offices while working on proliferation issues, where again, I got to see the Agency bring analytic expertise and operational know-how together to make a difference. I believe if I make a difference now at the senior level, it’s because I probably look at issues from a cross-directorate perspective.

TBC: What was the actual tipping point that catapulted you from the analytic ranks to senior leadership?

BROMLEY: I would have to say it was in the Counter-Narcotics Center and working in a program that was extremely tough. It required me to “speak truth to power,” that is, tell other government officials and senior policymakers things that were hard. Being in that environment and having the drive of that mission formulated the tipping point for me.

TBC: Why is diversity important to your directorate’s mission and what is your vision for diversity in the DI?

BROMLEY: Our business is helping senior policymakers in this government deal with very difficult issues. I want us to be the go-to office for policymakers
– if they’re dealing with something very difficult, I want them to know that CIA analytic experts can help. “What do we know about this issue? What are the challenges related to the issue?” To be that hallmark of excellence, we need the diversity that the world presents right here in our workforce. We must draw on different opinions and different experiences when we’re trying to understand complex global issues. We need lots of different people, with different ideas, different experiences, and who feel comfortable enough, to put their views on the table. We can’t do that without a diverse workforce. We just can’t. You need different backgrounds, ideas and experiences, to run something as demanding and complicated as the Agency’s business. It’s having a broad variety of backgrounds, a broad variety of ideas and perspectives, and an environment where you can come to the table and bring other ideas to the challenge and feel comfortable enough to say that. I think it makes us stronger and it makes our product better.

GERTIE STARKS: You’re absolutely right, Sue. We must have an environment in the directorate where employees from different cultures and backgrounds feel comfortable expressing different views, because it matters to our analytical work. It actually is key to our success.

PETER CLEMENT: I want to comment specifically on one of the comments Sue made, the one about her experience. One of the reasons people like Sue and John Kringen, the Director for Intelligence, both have gotten to where they are is because they worked in many different offices, directorates, and other agencies and had a real range of experiences – in managing substantive people and budgets.

TBC: How do you prepare mid-level minority officers to assume leadership roles?

BROMLEY: We try to prepare all of our officers to assume leadership roles. We’ve invested a lot in our training programs. We are making sure that people have an opportunity to have different kinds of assignments at various stages of their careers. I’m a poster child for that.

TBC: In the October 2006 issue of THE BLACK COLLEGIAN, John Kringen talked about the development of a DI’s Coaching and Mentoring Program for mid-level minority employees. Can you tell us about that program and how was it received by both managers and employees?

BROMLEY: I think it’s off to a good start. We put a lot of energy into recruiting a diverse workforce and we want to make sure that we optimize the skills and talents of all of our officers and prepare them to handle the management responsibilities here in the directorate. This program is just another tool to not only develop but retain our diverse workforce.

CLEMENT: One of the things I like about this program is we specifically pair the minority officers in this program with a senior manager. Sue, John, and I are all serving as coaches/mentors. This program gives us mentors an opportunity to meet often with an employee with whom we might not otherwise have an opportunity to engage. When you spend some time with a particular individual, you actually get to know them a lot better, get to know what’s going on in their world, and how they view the directorate and the Agency. This becomes a very important window for us, because we are several levels removed from their “ground truth.” But as we get to know our mentee better and understand his/her career goals and aspirations, we can offer advice on training or specific assignments that would benefit the employee.

BROMLEY: It’s about helping people make informed decisions and choices. Some of our officers may say, “I’ve watched the management track and I’ve watched the analyst expert track. The expert track is for me. I can get to senior levels there and have a huge impact. That’s where my natural interests lie. Some people look at the management track and say, “I love that. That’s where I can help lead and grow people and also help create new products or think about how we do our business in the future.” Having a program like this helps people see both sides before they commit to a career track.

CLEMENT: Mentoring is a very critical component of a diversity program as it produces the kinds of access and information – and guidance – that helps people see how things work and then make informed decisions about which career path to choose. This is important if we are to retain the talent we worked so hard to recruit and hire.

TBC: Gertie, would you like to comment on the program as well?

STARKS: We have just completed the first running of this program, which is designed for employees in our management and expert track feeder pool. This program offers an opportunity for our minority employees to be coached by our directorate’s senior leaders. These are more than just one-on-one consultations, as mentees shadow their mentors and accompany them to high-level briefings/meetings to see first-hand the kinds of day-to-day activities they perform. They observe high-level decision-making at play and the full array of skills required to perform at senior levels. The mentor can then say “at this point in your career you need to get this kind of experience and this kind of training to be able to function effectively at the next level.”

CLEMENT: And that’s advice given directly to the mentee from a senior level manager in the directorate.

STARKS: Absolutely, directly to the mentee. And, it’s not just the advice, but the other experiences they’re getting from the senior managers that the employees would not have received otherwise. As Peter stated earlier, the senior managers also gain an incredible perspective about the directorate from the employee. So, both mentors and mentees gain.

TBC: Brian, as vice chair of the Black Executive Board (BEB), can you comment on the program?

BRIAN MARTIN: Like Gertie said, these are officers who normally wouldn’t come in contact on a regular basis with the 7th floor. This contact kind of removes the mystery of what goes on up here. Sometimes when you know what the expectations are, you say, “Oh, I can do that, given the right training and experience” instead of “What's happening up there?” I’ve talked to a couple of people who are members of the mentee cadre and they’re thrilled, because they get to talk to senior managers about their own careers and see exactly what senior managers must consider and weigh as they move toward making a decision. That’s very helpful. Also, the employee can waterfall from there and figure out what kind of experiences they need to prepare themselves for that kind of decision-making. It’s been an outstanding success. The first cadre actually completed their six-month program. But, post-program survey results indicated that both mentors and mentees wanted more time; so, the program has been extended for three additional months.

STARKS: That in itself says something about the success of this program. We have already begun the process for the second running of this program.

TBC: Would you talk a little bit about how the Mentoring Program fits into your vision for the directorate.

BROMLEY: Diversity is key to our future success. We have strong programs in place, such as this mentoring program, that we are invested in. We also evaluate all of our senior managers on their commitment to and investment in furthering diversity in the directorate. I think the managers in the directorate see this. They participate in the programs. And, frankly, the programs are successful because of their participation. Ultimately, we want to get to a point where we don’t have to have programs in place to make all of this happen. We want diversity to be firmly rooted in the foundation of who we are as an organization and reflected in how we manage and operate.

TBC: Why is diversity a top priority for you and how do you communicate this priority with your directorate?

BROMLEY: Ultimately, we want to be the best there is at what we do for policymakers. We’re not going to be the best there is if we don’t incorporate diversity of thought and ideas at the analytic level and at the management level. We must avoid the perception of group-think. The global issues and situations we face are complex and we need to make sure that we are thinking about them in a sophisticated way, one that incorporates lots of different ideas and lots of different approaches. The way to do that is to constantly grow and evolve and take advantage of all the ideas that our employees can bring to the table. Our country’s security is dependent upon us doing nothing less.

For information about careers at the Central Intelligence Agency, visit the website at www.cia.org.